


We Won't Go Running For Cover

by ellethesnail



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: F/M, Fluff, but mostly just a whole lotta fluff, very very slight reference to past suicidal ideation and attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25923820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellethesnail/pseuds/ellethesnail
Summary: Evan visits Ellison Park for the first time since the summer before senior year. This time, though, his body carries more light and less darkness. This time, Zoe is by his side.
Relationships: Evan Hansen/Zoe Murphy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	We Won't Go Running For Cover

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the Sincerely Us summer gift exchange, for deh-for-forever on tumblr. Though the exchange is over by now, I wanted to put this piece up here since it feels like it goes along with "You Can Ebb and I Can Flow" in a way. That one is about Evan being there for Zoe, and now it's Zoe's turn to be there for him.
> 
> It takes place in a canon-divergent AU where Connor still dies but Evan tells the truth. He and Zoe become friends and end up dating naturally and healthily because in this house we love a healthy relationship for these two. (Title from “RAIN” by Ben Platt because of course I had to.)

“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Zoe asks as they get out of the car. She reaches for Evan’s hand.

He nods resolutely. “I’m ready. I want to.”

She looks at him, standing tall at the entrance to Ellison Park like one of the many trees surrounding them. She marvels at how his posture has changed since they started dating almost a year ago. His spine is straighter, his shoulders sturdier. She still sees hints of the old anxiety at the edges of his being, but it’s not as frequent a visitor as it used to be.

She squeezes his hand. “It’s a beautiful day. I’m proud of you.”

Despite being the end of July––just after Evan got back from his time as a camp counselor––the air is refreshing and cool. The park looks breathtaking in the early morning, scraps of fog still lingering amid thick tree trunks like stuffing pulled from a pillow.

Evan exhales a bit, eyes on the little trail leading up into the forest. In his repression of last summer’s memories, he had forgotten how lovely this park was. He smiles at his favorite cluster of birches to the right of the trail, notices the familiar rock hunched like a turtle peaking out beyond them.

Swinging Zoe’s hand a bit, he turns to her, still faintly smiling. “Let’s go.”

~

They spend the first half of the morning hiking Ellison Park’s winding trails. Zoe can’t help but smile as she listens to Evan point out different trees and describe their defining traits.

“See that oak and that maple over there?” He gestures to two trees at the bend of the trail. “They’re both lobed leaves.” He picks up a leaf from the ground to show her.

“Even though one’s round and one’s spiky?” Zoe asks, running her finger over the edges of the maple leaf.

“Yep. But that one, the elm? See the little ridges on its leaves? That’s a toothed leaf, not a lobed one.”

Zoe nods in interest, a smile filling her face as Evan continues his explanations.

The sun slowly climbs up the sky as they hike, evaporating fog and bringing with it July’s signature humidity. By lunch time they’re both hot and hungry.

“Look!” Zoe points to a break in the trees where a stream runs through a clearing. “Why don’t we stop for lunch here?”

“That looks perfect.”

Evan takes out sandwiches from his backpack and Zoe unfurls a quilt to place beside the stream. She pulls off her converse, unties the flannel from around her waist, and splashes into the water.

“I thought we were eating lunch!” Evan laughs.

“This is an important pre-meal refreshment,” Zoe answers with a smirk.

When Evan doesn’t say anything else, just sitting on the blanket and watching her with a stupid, peaceful smile, she splashes a fistful of water at him.

“Hey!”

“Stop sitting there and come hop in!”

Evan pretends to be reluctant as he unties his shoes, but Zoe can tell he’s enjoying himself by the way his body bends lightly, no weight on his shoulders. He joins her in the water, playing with the smooth stream-bed pebbles with his feet. They wade until they’ve cooled off, and then scramble back up onto the bank, feet wet and faces grinning.

“Okay, what do we have for lunch?” Zoe asks once she dries her hands on the quilt.

Evan hands her one of the sandwiches. “Roast beef with some lettuce and cheese and stuff.”

Zoe bites into her sandwich with relish. She doesn’t realize how hungry she is until she tastes the first leaf of lettuce, and soon the whole sandwich is gone. Evan eats his just as quickly, brushing crumbs off onto the grass.

Stomach full and legs tired from hiking, he lies down on his back so he can stare up at the trees rustling overhead. Sunlight falls through chinks in the leafy canopy. They dapple his messy hair, freckled arms, and wrinkled camp t-shirt he put on that morning.

“Taking a nap?” Zoe asks from somewhere nearby. Her voice is quieter than it was earlier, less playful and more content.

“Mmm.” He lets his eyelids slip shut. Their backs look dappled too, patterns shifting as wind plays with the branches above him.

The shifting leaves and running brook almost lull him to sleep when he hears something new. Soft fingerpicking––the familiar sound of Zoe’s fingers brushing against ukulele strings. She starts with something instrumental, a piece she’s been writing for awhile now, playing softly and humming scraps of a melody. Next, she shifts to the steady strum of chords.

To his own surprise, Evan finds himself singing along to the chorus. “ _You and me, we can make this hole a home._ ” The words slip from his mouth without him realizing it.

Zoe joins in with harmony, their voices twisting together like the two strands of a friendship bracelet. “ _We can fill it up with grass and all the things that make it warm._ ”

Usually Evan would feel self-conscious singing, but with Zoe’s voice beside his he forgets to think about it. Instead of making his voice sound weak in comparison, Zoe’s comes alongside his, strengthening it, supporting it.

“ _Wind blows peacefully,_ ” Evan continues, a smile hovering on the edges of his lips. The wind plays with his hair and Zoe’s t-shirt as if in answer to the song. He lets out a deep, contented sigh. “ _There’s no place I’d rather be._ ”

“ _You and me, we can make this hole a home. We can fill it up with grass and all the things that make it warm,_ ” they sing together. “ _When you leave to go fly across the sea, I’ll be waiting here with Junior and the flowers that we’ve grown._ ”

Evan cracks his eyelids open as Zoe hums the outro. She’s swaying slightly, lost in the flow of the music, bits of light brown hair escaping from her ponytail. The mid-afternoon light slants through tree branches and falls across her shoulders. 

They keep playing and singing until Zoe’s fingers start to hurt from the ukulele strings. Reluctantly, she slips her ukulele back into its case and zips it shut.

“What do you want to do now?” she wonders, half to herself.

Evan gives a lazy “hmm” in response. Zoe can tell he’s zoned out, eyes focused on some place past the tree tops.

“Something on your mind?”

“Hmm.” This time, she knows Evan’s answer is one of reluctance rather than drowsiness. She shifts on the blanket until she’s sitting beside him, her criss-crossed legs touching his side. He gives her a little smile in thanks.

“Is it about the park?”

Evan is silent, eyes still unfocused. His fingers twist the grass at the edge of the blanket.

“You’ve been really brave,” Zoe continues, voice just above a murmur. She’s absentmindedly plucking at a cluster of purple asters. Her fingers braid their stems together while she watches Evan. “We can go back now if you want. I don’t mind if––”

“No, no. I . . . I’m really glad to be here. With you. It’s just . . . strange.” Silence hangs heavy for a moment, but Zoe knows he has more to say. “I didn’t think I’d make it this far, you know?”

Pain flits across Zoe’s face. She digs her nails into the aster stems, twisting and tying. “I know. I’m so glad you have, though. Look at you, Ev. You’ve grown so much. Who knows how much you’ll have grown in a year from now.”

This pulls Evan back to the park, and the picnic, and her. When he looks around, he sees his surroundings. The soft sunlight making everything golden. The cool breeze against his skin. Someone beside him who knows his dark corners and still chooses to stay.

He sits up and leans gently against Zoe. “That’s kind of a terrifying thought to be honest.”

Zoe just rests her head against his shoulder and nods slightly. “But a good one too.”

Evan looks down at her lap, a freshly-woven flower crown sitting across it. She looks down too as if seeing it for the first time, then notices Evan’s fingers stained green from the grass he had uprooted, now sitting in a little pile next to the quilt. She laughs, and he does too, and their voices mix with the giggle of the stream and the rustle of the summer leaves.

Zoe takes her flower crown and nestles it into Evan’s messy hair. “I’m really, really happy you’re here.”

He smiles wider, his eyes fully focusing on her face instead of getting lost in a haze. He takes a slow, deep breath. “So am I.”

~

They spend the rest of the day hiking, Zoe picking more wildflowers to make a matching crown for herself and Evan rambling about the trees they pass. It’s almost dinner-time when they hear a pattering in the distance.

Zoe glances at the suddenly overcast sky. “Is that rain?”

Before Evan can answer, the pattering has grown far closer, the distinct sound of heavy rain hitting leaves filling the air. Evan and Zoe exchange a look of dismayjust as a sheet of rain breaks through the forest canopy.

Zoe squeals with shock and laughter. The water is frigid, like jumping into the deep end of a pool with no warning. Despite the thick leaves overhead, they’re soaked in seconds.

Evan sputters, trying to get his drenched bangs out of his eyes. He can hear Zoe laughing but he can’t see anything, just water. He manages to wipe the rain away and sees Zoe dancing, there in the woods in the middle of a rainstorm. Flyaway hairs stick to her face and her ponytail hangs heavy from water, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She has her eyes closed and her arms outstretched as she spins around with her face towards the sky, grinning wide.

Laughter, strong and full, tumbles out of Evan’s mouth. He stops trying to keep the rain out of his eyes. He sheds his backpack and joins Zoe in her dance, jumping and spinning in the storm. The wind drives the rain into his skin but it’s refreshing more than painful. Instead of weighing him down, the rain around him seems to pull him up out of himself, out of his anxieties, out of the memories from last summer that were tethered to every oak tree they had passed.

It’s as if the rain is washing all that away, leaving the world clean and new. Leaving _him_ clean and new. He’s dancing and he’s laughing and suddenly he’s crying as well, tears mixing with the rain running down his face. Because he’s here now, alive, laughter and life running through his veins instead of all the fears and self-loathing that used to hold him captive. In this moment, as Zoe laughs and the rain pours and his heart pounds in his chest, he knows without a doubt that he is happy to be alive.

~

The storm moves on as quickly as it came, leaving Evan and Zoe in its wake with dripping hair and clothes clinging to their skin. By now, the sun has slid below the tree-line. Twilight slips into the spaces between tree trunks and the clouds have cleared enough to reveal the last rays of sunset.

Once they find a suitable clearing, they stop to make a campfire. Steam rises from their clothes when they stand close to the flames. They set their hiking boots near the fire to dry out, but give up on getting their shirts to do the same. The air is still muggy and warm, so they don’t really mind.

They cook hotdogs for dinner and afterwards Zoe pulls a package of marshmallows from her waterproof backpack. They hunt around their campsite for suitable sticks, then Evan whittles their tips down to perfectly spear the marshmallows. He leans against a log beside Zoe as he turns his marshmallow over the fire.

Suddenly, Zoe’s marshmallow, held a bit too close to the heat, bursts into flame.

“Zo!”

Zoe quickly pulls it from the heat and blows out the fire. The marshmallow is burnt black.

“Oh no, it’s ruined!”

Zoe just laughs. “No it’s not. This is perfect!”

“What?” Evan is aghast.

Smirking, Zoe pops the burnt marshmallow into her mouth. She chews with relish, though Evan can’t tell what she’s enjoying more: the crispy marshmallow or his reaction.

He shakes his head in mock disgust. “Uncivilized.” He pulls his light brown marshmallow off its stick and chews it with a grin.

“You may as well just eat them straight from the bag if you’re not going to actually cook them. The burnt parts give it some flavor.”

“Oh good to know. I’ll keep that in mind, most knowledgable cooking connoisseur.”

Zoe rolls her eyes with a laugh.

After they finish their marshmallows, they settle down beside the fire. Evan stokes the flames and sparks spiral upward to join the stars that have appeared overhead.

“That one’s Cassiopeia.” Zoe points to a constellation near the horizon.

“It looks like a zigzag.”

Zoe chuckles. “Yeah it kinda does. But it technically looks like a woman––her leg’s bending there, and that’s her back, see?”

“What about that one?”

“Oh, that looks too bright to be a star. That’s Jupiter, I think. This one’s a star though, in the Big Dipper––Polaris, the North Star. The one navigators used to travel by back before compasses were a thing. And there, out past the Big Dipper, that constellation’s Lyra, one of my favorites.”

Evan smiles as Zoe continues to label the heavens. The way she describes each constellation makes him able to picture their shapes in the sky, able to see them as the ancient civilizations did when they gave them names like Ursa Minor the Great Bear and Leo the Lion.

Eventually, though, they both grow tired. The fire has sunk to smoldering embers. Their boots have dried and their eyes are heavy. When Evan glances at his phone to check the time, he realizes in alarm that the park is scheduled to close in a half hour. Reluctantly, they pack up their things, extinguish the fire, and make their way back to the entrance.

At the car, Evan pauses to take one more mental snapshot. The trees are only black shapes in the darkness now. He can spot Polaris above the trees, bright against the night sky. The North Star, the one used to guide people home. He turns around and sees Zoe sitting in the driver’s seat. She must have her phone on, because the light illuminates her face as she smiles. Her eyes shine and Evan smiles back though he knows she can’t see.

He climbs into the passenger’s seat, head still filled with thoughts of trees and constellations. Zoe pulls out of the parking lot and, like the north star, leads them home.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @thatfriendlyanon if you wanna say hi, see more stuff like moodboards/playlists/whatnot, or just pop by. thank you for reading! <3


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